Background Apps – Apple Say Maybe

Apple (APPL) have been stubborn in regards to adding third-party background app support. Previously citing battery life problems, security concerns and added consumer confusion as reasons to leave support out of iPhone OS firmware, Apple may be changing their stance. Lack of such support flies in the face of Apple’s staunchest of competitors who each have some sort of support for the function.Â

According to Business Insider, two possible synopses for Apple to follow:

Apple might allow users to select two apps that can run in the background. Specifically, one source says there’s some evidence of this in a new beta of Apple’s iPhone 3.0 software developers kit. (We don’t have the SDK, and wouldn’t know where to look if we did.)

Apple might selectively allow some apps to run in the background. We assume that developers could apply for permission to run in the background, and that Apple might approve or deny them based on the resources they need and how well they behave with the operating system’s stability.

Additionally, we know from Apple’s OS 3.0 media event that their support of push notifications will increase in the new firmware, allowing users to get realtime feedback of change within a non-running app. While perfect for chat, mail and simple Web-driven apps, push notifications are a far cry from background support. As the new hardware is rumoured to jump from 128MB to 256MB of ram, lack of hardware power will not be an easy to swallow excuse.Â